“You don’t know what you’re saying!” she said, haughtily, trying to withdraw into her maidenly reserve. “You don’t know what you’re saying. But your manners are only put on, for strangers. And at heart you’re a cowardly cad, a cowardly cad, who strikes and insults women.”
He made an angry movement at her words.
“You’re not going to strike me, I suppose?” she said, drawing herself up haughtily. “You’ve insulted me: isn’t that enough for you?”
She made an effort to turn away calmly, walked out of the room, up the stairs. The sobs welled up in her throat; she could no longer keep them back:
“O God!” she thought. “Everybody knows it. Everybody sees it. I can’t keep it hidden: I love him, I love him!... Hush! Hush! I must suppress it, deep, deep down in myself. But, if I love him, if I love him ... if I am happy when I see him.... Oh, hush, hush!”
She pressed her two hands to her breast, as though to thrust her emotion deep down in her soul. She wiped her eyes, had the strength to return to the drawing-room. She talked gaily and pleasantly, as the daughter of the house, but she suddenly felt tired to death:
“Everybody knows it, everybody sees it,” she kept on thinking; and she tried to read in the faces of the guests what they saw, what they knew.
It was over at last. The butler was continually coming to the door, announcing the carriages. Those people would not remain much longer. It was ten o’clock; and they began to say good-bye. They followed one after the other, at short intervals, as is proper at big dinner-parties.... There was only one of the ministers left, talking earnestly to Van Naghel, in a low voice, probably about some government matter: he was not thinking yet of going.... But at last he also hastened away, apologizing. And Van Naghel and Bertha, Marianne, Frances and Otto all listened while he put on his overcoat downstairs, said a word to the butler.... The front-door slammed. They were alone.
They looked at one another....
And, as if driven by an irresistible impulse, Van Naghel went downstairs, to his son-in-law, and Bertha and Marianne upstairs, to Emilie....